Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking Read Online Free

rebuked by the Department for overstepping his authority in sending an injudicious letter to the 4,081 local draft boards. “The prosecution of these five came about as a result of our flap with Hershey. It was thought to be a good way out—it was done to provide a graceful way out for General Hershey.” “What made you pick out Dr. Spock and his four co-defendants from the tens of thousands protesting the draft?” I asked. “Because of their names and personalities,” answered Van de Kamp. “We managed to subpoena a large amount of television newsreel footage of their activities. We wouldn’t have indicted them except for the fact there was so much evidence available on film. They made no great secret of what they were doing.”
    So that was it: Dr. Spock and the others were offered up in unabashed response to political pressure, as a sacrificial offering to placate an irascible old man who had become an embarrassment to the Administration. And the sole evidence of their “conspiracy” was contained in newsreels of press conferences and protest rallies that took place in a blaze of television publicity. The defense had suspected such grubby machinations, but confirmation from the chief prosecutor was an unexpected bonanza.
    A good example of how not to conduct an interview was furnished by one of my Yale students, a seventeen-year-old freshman. He was investigating a publication called Who’s Who in American High Schools , sold to proud parents of the listed high-school seniors for $16.95 a copy. The volume looks something like a telephone directory and the purchaser may need a magnifying glass to find the distinguished scholar’s name, followed by a reference to the accomplishment that merited his or her inclusion as: “Smith, Susan, chr. ldr.” My student had done an assiduous and imaginative job of preliminary research: he had consulted reference librarians who attested to the book’s worthlessness; he had turned up several dissatisfied purchasers of Who’s Who in American High Schools .
    He had arrived at the stage in his investigation where he was ready to call the publisher, who lived in Illinois, and attempt to interview him by telephone. I suggested that he should start off with some general questions about reference books: their usefulness to researchers, the number of libraries that carry Who’s Who in American High Schools .
    We listed half a dozen Kind questions along these lines before proceeding to the Cruels: “Have you ever been sued by the Marquis people for breach of their trademark of the title ‘Who’s Who’ ?” “How much profit do you realize from each sale to a high-school senior?” “Do you make many multiple sales for the same honoree—one for Auntie, one for Grandma?”
    But somehow when my student had the publisher on the line he got flustered and, skipping over the first series of questions, waded precipitately into the Cruel ones. “Well, I don’t think I want to discuss these matters on the telephone,” the publisher said mildly. “Oh, so you won’t talk?” said the student belligerently, to which the publisher replied, “That’s right, I’m hanging up the phone.” Which he did, leaving my poor student bristling with impotent indignation.
    There came a time when I regretted having imparted this particular secret of my trade. When A Fine Old Conflict was published, Knopf sent me on a publicity tour of various cities including Boston, where one of my favorite Yale students, now graduated, had a job on the Globe . He managed to wangle an assignment to interview me for the “Living” section, and came up to meet me in my room in the Ritz-Carlton hotel. I was delighted to see him all grown up and a working journalist; there was much gossip and giggling over the old days at Yale—only a year before, but it seemed to him like a lifetime.
    “Actually, knowing you as well as I do, I could write up this interview without even talking to you,” he said. “But I